Dial Tone (Backrooms Fanfic)

Part 1

I don't know exactly when I fell asleep but when I did, I had been hoping to wake up to a different world. Instead, with the growing sense of consciousness came the feeling of my face pressed against the photo album, still caked with makeup from the television appearance, still washed out from the tears I'd shed in the dark while I sorted through the pictures. The room still smelled of strongly of printer ink and hot paper, but I don't mind because the work has been done well. When I sit up, all around me I see his face, and it brings me comfort to think that at every street corner, every telephone pole, and every public bulletin board, the people of Solano County will see it too.

The clock reads 9 AM. Something in the back of my mind, the old part of me, the part still intact from before this whole business began, remembers that I'm late to work. But the real me knows not to worry. I haven't worked for days. My boss let me take a leave of absence the moment we realized Jeremy was gone.

Not just missing. Not kidnapped or murdered or lost. Just gone. Without a trace. Without a note or a sign or a goodbye.

I take deep breaths to calm myself. It's in my nature to get lost in the emotions of it all but I have to focus. Come back to reality. Because there's no way in heck I'm going to give up on my little brother.

My therapist told me she thinks the reason I've been going so hard is that I blame myself. I think that I should have been with him that night. That I should've known better than to send a thirteen-year-old out alone on October 31st. She tells me to forgive myself and lists all the ways I can start healing my broken head.

I think she's just annoyed that I've cancelled so many of our sessions in the last few weeks. I don't need to be spending hours talking to a doctor about myself when I could be talking to the police about getting my brother back.

I push back my chair and stand up. Every bone in my body aches from another night spent hunching over the old slides and then asleep. But I shove it away and focus in on the calendar.

November 22, 1989. So tantalizingly close to a new decade. To new possibilities. I should be out in the world right now, getting a taste of what it can offer, making money, and saving for college. That's what my ex told me anyway.

I told him family comes first. It's the reason I didn't bother taking his calls in the days after Jeremy went missing.

This is also the reason I almost don't bother picking up when the flip phone in the pocket of my jeans starts to ring as I leave my room for the hallway, then the kitchen.

I keep ignoring it as I pour myself a glass of orange juice and take a seat at the dining room table. The newspaper my dad took in before going to work this morning is splayed out in front of me. The ringing is a strange but fitting ambience as I see the front page, emblazoned with a picture of my face and of Jeremy's.

Local Girl Refuses to Give Up Hope In Search For Missing Brother. They have me pinned down perfectly.

The phone goes silent. I take a sip of my orange juice and close my eyes. The ticking of the clock in the living room takes my immediate attention as I try to clear my mind for the day ahead. Then, it shifts to the sounds of the street outside my house: the steady flow of traffic and the morning conversations of neighbours taking their turns as pedestrians. Then, again, it fades to-

The ringtone. I find myself opening my eyes, jabbed by irritation, and dig the phone out of my pocket.

I look at it for a moment. It's supposed to be brand new, straight from the hands of the company who designed it into those of my dad, who works for them. If I had more patience for the realm of technology, I probably could appreciate the efficiency of the new design. Weighing some 360 grams, sometimes it's genuinely hard to believe the thing in my hands is a fully functional cellular phone. But right now I really don't care. The only reason I've been looking at it recently is with anticipation, hoping that this call will be the one bringing me closure for this whole mess.

Somehow, I doubt this is the one. It never is. But I pick it up anyway.

The line hisses with static. Then a voice breaks through.

"Cassie?" More static. "Cassandra Atkinson, is that you?"

I can't breathe. That voice- It's hard to tell but it sounds almost like- "Jeremy?" I stand up.

He says my name again, except this time it's not a question. "Cassie."

"Jeremy. Oh my gosh, Jeremey, stay where you are- I mean, where are you? Are you okay? I'm coming okay." I'm running to the front door, pulling on my shoes and coat. "Jeremey, stay on the line."

Through the pounding in my head I think I hear more of his voice on the other side, maybe other voices too, but I'm not sure. I'm running down the front steps, desperate to do something to preserve this connection, to find him, before it's broken-

"Jeremy, we're looking for you okay? We're going to find you, just don't do anything dumb." My face is wet. I'm not sure why. I'm running down the sidewalk. "Please tell me where you are."

"Soon, Cassie. You're close."

And then the call hangs up. Panicking, I quickly look at the number he called from before it disappears, committing every character to memory. I start to dial it again as I move, realizing now that I'm headed in the direction of the local police station, the station that has been like a second home these last few weeks.

I finish dialling and put the phone to my ear, listening to the tone as I pick up my pace. "Jeremy, please. Please pick up."

I'm stumbling over myself trying to hold onto this, the first light at the end of the tunnel I've seen since the night he didn't come home. It's a faint light, a dim one, but it's something. It's humming through my whole body, vibrating inside my core. I'm flying down the sidewalk, feet pounding on the pavement, feeling like I'm lifting off but somehow also...

Falling. I've tripped or fainted or something because all of a sudden I'm hitting the ground. Except instead of concrete, it accepts my momentum gently, although the impact still knocks the wind out of me as though I've fallen many feet. The humming, the buzzing feeling I'd mistaken for elation just moments before is louder in my ears, mixing with the ringing in my ears as my body adjusts to my collision with-

What? Where?